Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) broke ground on a section of a planned Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) line in New Taipei City’s Shulin District (樹林) on Friday.
The groundbreaking ceremony for the 6.6km section marked the beginning of the second phase of the construction of Taipei’s Light Green Line, which is to connect the two cities, the New Taipei City Department of Rapid Transit Systems said.
The Light Green Line, also known as the Wanda-Zhonghe-Shulin Line, is to connect Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Station in Taipei and Huilong Station in New Taipei City’s Xinzhuang District (新莊), and expand the MRT network to Shulin for the first time, the department said.
Photo: CNA
The MRT network has grown from linking the Taipei’s districts to an expanding inter-city network, Ko said at the ceremony.
Hou said that a contractor is being sought for the second phase of construction in New Taipei City’s Tucheng District (土城), which is to include five stations and is scheduled for completion in 2028.
The budget for the Shulin section was raised by NT$5.2 billion (US$163.09 million) to NT$18 billion before a bidder was secured, the department said in a statement on Friday.
The Shulin section is to have eight elevated stations, including one in Banciao District (板橋) and six in Shulin, it said.
Construction of the Light Green Line’s first phase, the 9.5km Wanda-Zhonghe section, began in December 2014 and is expected to cost NT$74.18 billion and be completed by the end of 2025, the department’s Web site said.
The first phase of the line, between Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Station and the planned Juguang Station in New Taipei City’s Zhonghe District (中和), includes nine underground stations, and is about 65 percent complete, the department said.
The Wanda-Zhonghe section is to intersect with the Taipei MRT’s Red, Green and Yellow lines.
The department expects the first phase to have a daily ridership of 247,000 and cut travel time between New Taipei City’s Zhonghe and Yonghe (永和) districts and Taipei’s Wanhua (萬華) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts to 17 minutes, compared with 26 minutes by road.
Once the Light Green Line is complete, it should cut travel time by up to 30 minutes between Shulin and Taipei.
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